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INVINCIBLE INDIA 


WRITTEN BY ED GAMMONS for the Hindustan Gadar Party. 


ed 


THEY MIGHT HAVE LAUGHED AT A BRITISH GENERAL! 


“‘To secure good administration is one thing, but good government can never be a sub- 
stitute for government by the people themselves.” The late Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- 
man, British Prime Minister, at Stirling, Scotland, November 23, 1905. 


Two thousand unarmed and unresisting Indians, holding a public meeting to discuss their grievances, were 
shot down in less than twenty minutes in Amritsar, India, on Sunday, April 13th, 1919, by fifty riflemen com- 
manded by Brigadier-General R. E. H. Dyer of the British army. 

““They would have all come back and laughed at me if I had not shot. It was a merciful act and the people 
ought to be thankful to me for it,’’ explained Dyer nine months later, when he was testifying before the Hunter 
Commission, which has now censured the doughty general and asked his resignation. Temporarily the ‘‘goat,’’ he 
will doubtless be recompensed by appointment to some less prominent position. 

Between 5000 and 7000 people were assembled at Amritsar to protest against the enactment of the Rowlatt 
Bills the continuation of restrictive war legislation, the deportation of their local leaders and other features of 
misgovernment. General Dyer marched to the meeting and without a single word of warning killed 500 people 
and wounded 1500. The casualties were limited to this number because General Dyer could not get his armored 
cars, with their machine guns, into the meeting square and his ammunition was limited to 1650 rounds of ball 
cartridge. After every bullet found its billet, the gallant general marched off leaving his victims to suffer in 
the blazing sun for twenty-seven hours! 

Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, and General Benyon, Dyer’s immediate 
superior, heartily approved of the ‘‘merciful act.’’ So did the London Morning Post. ‘‘General Dyer has done 
the highest credit to the British Empire,’’ it commented admiringly. But there was some dissent. 

‘“General Dyer’s conduct appears to be indefensible,’’ said the London Times. 

‘*No blacker or fouler story has ever been told,’’ proclaimed the London Daily Herald, the official organ of 
British Labor. 

The House of Commons loudly cheered Mr. Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, when he announced 
on December 19th, 1919, that General Dyer had not been relieved of his command following the massacre! As 
a matter of fact he had been promoted. 

Suppressed for nine months, the story of Amritsar recoiled on its suppressors'and now the whole world is 
demanding the truth about India. 

“One people may keep another for its use,’’ said John Stuart Mill, ‘‘a place to make money in, a human 
cattle farm for the profit of its inhabitants. But such a thing as the government of one people by another can- 
not exist.’’ 

Does England regard India as a ‘‘huge cattle farm’’? 

Or does she govern India cleanly, disinterestedly ? 


GOVERNMENT — AUTOCRATIC, ALIEN AND IRRESPONSIBLE 


The doctrine of the responsibility of the Government 
of India to the British Parliament, sitting in West- 


minster, is farcical. The Viceroys of India are still 
the ‘‘despotic kings’’ described by Lord Salisbury. 
Their power is unchanged. 

Last December it was announced, with a flourish of 
trumpets, that England, in consonance with her war 
promises, had conceded ‘‘Home Rule’’ to India. Many 
people were deceived by the glamor of the title—‘‘ Home 
Rule!’’ It suggested what the title implies. They for- 
vot that the measures, blessed with that cognomen and 
doled out by England to subject peoples, merely allow 
them to patch roads and play with toy parliaments, 
possessed of none of the powers exercised by even 
semi-independent countries. The Montagu Act answers 
that description. It makes some technical changes in 
the Government of India. It makes no real ones. It 
does not detract from its despotism. 

The Viceroy, or Governor-General, of India is chosen 
by the British Government. India has no voice in his 
selection. ; 

His Executive Council, on which a few soulless In- 
dians are permitted to sit, is also selected by the 
British Government. Again India is ignored. 

The Secretary of State for India is appointed by the 
British Government. India has no voice in_ his 
selection. 

The Indian Council of State consists of a majority 
of appointed members and a minority of elected mem- 
bers. It can pass legislation rejected by the Legisla- 
tive Assembly. Its term is limited to five years. 

The Legislative Assembly consists of a majority of 
elected members and a minority of appointed members. 
It cannot pass legislation rejected or disapproved of 
by the Council of State. Its term is lhmited to three 
years. 


The masses are not permitted to have any 
representation in either body. 


The elected members are returned on a property fran- 
chise exercised by two and a-half per cent. of the people 
of India. 

What a queer brand of democracy. 


POWER OF LEGISLATURES EXTREMELY 
LIMITED 


The governmental power rested in the hands of this 
small privileged class is so meagre and restricted as to 
be almost negligible. 


It is forbidden to legislate on local self-gov- 
ernment, medical administration, public health, 
education, agriculture, development of indus- 
tries, excise, public works and many other sub- 
jects of the most vital interest. 


The Governor-General and a few hand-picked officials 
have absolute control of these matters. 

Whilst the reservation of this important power de- 
prives the legislatures of every chance of ameliorating 
the condition of India, there are other restrictions 
which make the Montagu Act a hollow mockery. 


“British rule in India is the despotism of a line of Kings whose reigns are limited by climatic 
causes to five years.”—The late Marquis of Salisbury. 


1. The financial budget can be discussed, but not 
amended, by the legislatures. No revenue can be ap- 
propriated except on the recommendation of the Gov- 
ernor-General. 

2. The Governor-General can veto any laws passed. 
He can stop and even prevent the discussion of any 
bill ‘“af it affects the safety or tranquility of any part 
of a province.’’ He ean enact laws despite the oppo- 
sition of either legislature, and he can dissolve them, 
or prolong their terms, just as he pleases. 

3. Except permitted by the Governor-General the 
Assembly cannot vote-on (@) appropriations for in- 
terest and sinking fund charges on loans; (0b) expendi- 
ture, the amount of which is prescribed under any law; 
(c) salaries and pensions of chief commissioners, 
judicial commissioners and persons appointed by the 
King or Secretary of State in Council, and (d) expen- 
diture classified by the Government as ecclesiastical, 
political or for defense. 


If the Assembly refuses the demand of the 
Governor-General for money for any of these 


purposes, or reduces the amount, he can ignore 
their action and order the original amount 
expended. 


4. Rules governing the procédure of business by the 
Council of State and Legislative Assembly are made by 
the Governor-General and the Executive Assembly and 
cannot be changed without the sanction of the Gov- 
ernor-General. 

‘“‘The Government of India is an indefensible 
system,’’ said Secretary of State Montagu, when he 
was a candid eritic of the bureaucracy he now belongs 
to himself. 

Today, with the possible exception of the two and 
a-half per cent, the people of India tell Mr. Montagu: 
‘““Your scheme is indefensible. It does not give us the 
slightest voice in our government. Our determination 
to win Indian independence is unaltered.”’ 

How does this government govern? 


“THE TERROR OF THE ENGLISH NAME!” 


“Clive left no government in Bengal, but 
merely the tradition that unlimited sums of 
money might be extracted from the natives by 
the terror of the English name.” Sir Wm. 
Hunter, British-Indian official. 


We have seen the autocratic nature of the Indian 


Government. So it is no surprise to find an English- 
man tell us that it is founded on a heritage of terrorism 
handed down to his successors by the infamous Lord 
Clive. 

Clive’s administration of Indian affairs in his day 
was denounced by the directors of the British East 
India Company as ‘‘the most tyrannic and oppressive 
conduct ever known in any age or country.”’ 

He and the horde of empire-builders imported from 
England looted the country of all the physical wealth 
they could lay their hands on. Gold, diamonds, rubies 
and other valuable metals and stones were shipped in 
a steady stream to England and the ‘‘ Bengal plunder,’’ 
as it was termed, is estimated at a value of from 
$2,500,000,000 to $5,000,000,000! 


England’s great industrial impetus towards 
the close of the eighteenth century was only 
possible because of this vast inflow of treasure. 


The practice of openly looting a subject country has 
been discarded. It is done more scientifically these 
days. In the case of India it is done, as Adam Brooks 
says, ‘‘by indirect methods under forms of law.’’ 

One-third of the revenue of India goes to England. 
It goes in many forms: the upkeep of the Indian Office 
in London; pensions to Englishmen who have helped 
in the exploitation of India; interest on the Indian 
National Debt incurred by England masquerading as 
the Government of India, and scores of other ways. 
Thus is India looted now. 

Most of the remaining two-thirds is spent, not on 
improving the condition of the Indian people, but on 
ensuring their permanent subjugation. 

Education is neglected. Public health is neglected. 
Industrial development is neglected. Scientific research 
is neglected. Most of the revenue is spent on militarism 
and railroads. 

Railroads have been built steadily until the British 
military strategists and traders were satisfied that they 
had as perfect a system as they could wish. Though 
the military establishment comes first in point of ex- 
penditure, the railroads are of prior importance. 

They have a triple value: (a) they afford means of 
instantly rushing troops to any disaffected district; 
(6) they convey British goods to the formerly in- 
accessible interior in competition with the few re- 
maining Indian industries, and (c) they are indis- 
pensable in stripping India of the raw materials and 
foodstuffs England needs for her factories and people. 

In the fiscal year, 1919-20, 48% of the estimated 
revenue was spent on the military machine, 28% on 
the railroad system, and less than 2% on the combined 
subjects of education, public health, sanitation, agricul- 
ture, wrigation, scientific research and industrial de- 
velopment. 

The significance of these figures lies in the fact that 
32,000,000 Indians perished from preventable famine 
and plague in less than one year, whilst the British 
bureaucrats were yet allotting these expenditures. 


A GOVERNMENT OF ALIENS 


“Tt is our will that our subjects, of whatever 
race or creed, be freely and impartially ad- 
mitted to offices in our service, the duties of 
which they may be qualified by their educa- 
tion, ability and integrity, duly to perform.” 
From Queen Victoria’s proclamation to India, 


LBov: 


Of the many solemn pledges made to the Indian 
people by British monarchs and statesmen, and after- 
wards glibly broken, the most solemn and binding was 
that given the Indian people by Queen Victoria when 
she ascended the British tbrone. 

“All Indians are disqualified by reason of their 
race,’’ said Lord Curzon fifty years afterwards whilst 
he was Viceroy of India. 

In no country on earth are the people so much ex- 
cluded from responsible office in government as in 
India. 

The current edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica 
states in its section on India that, at the time the in- 
formation was compiled, out of 1355 positions in the 
higher Indian Civil Service, 1263 were held by Brit- 
ishers and 92 by Indians. 

When William Archer was in India, getting material 


for his book ‘‘India and the Future,’’ he asked why 
there was discrimination in this regard. He pointed 
out that the holding of the examinations in England 
automatically excluded almost every Indian. The reply 
of his British friends was: ‘‘The Hindu has such a 
prodigious memory and is so clever at examinations 
that the Englishman cannot stand up against him.’’ 
Another alibi was the alleged superior administrative 
eapacity of the Englishman! As Mr. Archer believes 
the British Empire ‘‘the most: beneficent fact in his- 
tory,’’ he cannot be accused of any bias in setting down 
the incapacity of the Englishman to compete with the 
Hindu on even terms. 


The Indian Year Book for 1916, compiled from 
official sources, states that only 5% of the positions in 
the Indian Medical Service were held by Indians. 


Of 115 appointments made in the Indian Educational 
Service, during the period 1911-16, 108 were Britishers 
and 7 were Indians. 

The following figures are from British Blue Books and 
show how the higher appointments in the different gov- 
ernmental departments are made: 

British. Indian. 


Aeoricnliurale ser vane i ccs. t oii ee eres 38 5) 
Botanicale Survey seete st eee ie ea 2 0 
EM GivcationaléSerywiges Bees cls ne. 3 3 
Horest@ Service ae 2 (wake. £03 lo ee a 1 
Geological @ourvey inc chelates 2 1 
diame ariktione 8 Oa rd oe cetaceans 56: 11 u 
Indian Trigonometrical Survey .................. 46 0) 
Medical and Bacteriological Service.......... 24 5) 
Meteorological Department ........................ 10 2 
Veterinary Départimentr oe = a 2 0 
ZOOLO SICA SUT VEY meee ee eee Tee 3 ] 


Ninety per cent of the positions are held by Britishers. 

The Indian officers receive about half the salary Brit- 
ishers are paid for the same work. 

Only in the degrading, least-paid branches of ad- 
ministration are Indians admitted in any number. 


“The Commission regrets to report that they 
have the strongest evidence of the corruption 
and inefficiency of the great mass of investi- 
gating officers of the higher grades. . . De- 
liberate association with criminals in _ their 
. Deliberately false charges against 

. Deliberate torture of 
Extract from Lord Cur- 
report on corruption of 


gains. . 
innocent persons. . 
suspected persons.” 
zons Commission 
Indian police system, 1905. 


The police system, so scathingly denounced by the 
Indian Government, is largely composed of Indians, 
commanded, of course, by Britishers. It is one of the 
main props of the invader. It is to India what the 
Royal Irish Constabulary is to Ireland. Corrupt and 
inefficient in police duties, it is highly efficient in its 
work of terrorizing India. In return for their poorly 
paid treachery the Indian police seem to have unofficial 
permission to prey relentlessly on the unfortunate 
people. Of course inquiries from time to time repro- 
bate their crimes, and hundreds, too calloused in crime 
to be careful in its practice, are dismissed and punished, 
but the system goes on. Jt is, from the British view- 
point, a political necessity. 

In Bengal, according to Commissioner of Police Halli- 
day of Caleutta, 569 inspectors, sub-inspectors, ser- 
geants, head-constables and constables were dismissed 


(Continued on Page 11) 


RESTRICTIVE LAWS FORCED ON PEOPLE. 


“I am bound to say that nothing was ever 
worse done in disregard to the feeling and 
opinion of the majority of the people con- 


Lord Morley, 


cerned.” then Secretary of 
State for India, discussing the partition of 
Bengal in House of Commons, February 26, 
1906. 


The Government of India, autocratic, systematically 
plundering ‘‘by indirect methods under forms of law,’’ 
and mainly manned by aliens, pays little heed to the 
wishes of the people. 

The Indian members of the Legislative Assembly are 
permitted to protest all they like. The appointed mem- 
bers yawn and smoke and vote the Indians down. 
Under the Montagu Act it is remotely possible that 
remedial legislation on some petty subject may be 
passed by the majority, representing the propertied 
class. But the Council of State is ready to kick them 
back into line and, failing that, the Governor-General 
is always ready with his veto. 

The partition of Bengal, so unsparingly denounced 
by the then Secretary of State for India, was forced 
through by Lord Curzon. He considered it a brilliant 
tactic in the task of insuring the perpetuation of Hindu- 
Mohammedan discord. Setting up a purely Moham- 
medan state did appeal to a few, but the vast majority 
saw through the dishonesty of the scheme and made 
a memorable protest. But it went through. 

The latest proof of the absolute irresponsibility of 
Simla is contained in the recent statement by Secretary 
of State Montagu that he first read the details of the 
Amritsar massacre, nine months later, in the columns 
of a London morning newspaper. We are assuming, 
of course, that Mr. Montagu told the truth. 

The Arms Act, the Defense of India Acts, the Press 
Act, the Official Secrets Act and the Rowlatt Acts were 
enacted, like the partition of Bengal, against the wishes 
' of the overwhelming majority of the Indian people. 

The Arms Act denies Indians the right of possessing 
firearms or weapons. Framed to protect British rule 
from the slightest possibility of revolt, it leaves the 
helpless peasantry at the mercy of the hordes of wild 
animals which roam the country and the deaths from 
this cause are increasing every year. But the Gov- 
ernment refuses to even consider any modification of 
the law. 


The Press Act has almost wiped out the 


freedom of the press in India. 


Three hundred and fifty printing presses have been 


penalized since 1910, 500 publications have been pro- 
scribed, and hundreds of enterprises have been aban- 
doned because of the restrictions imposed by the Press 
Act. Before any publication may be issued a large 
money deposit must be made with the Government, and 
this is confiscated the moment anything appears in 
print which is considered obnoxious to the bureaucracy. 

Editors and publishers have been imprisoned under 
the Press Act, and their deposits forfeited, because they 
published: (a) translations of articles on India written 
by William Jennings Bryan after he toured India in 
1906; (b) extracts from Sind Law Reports stating that 
the practice of reserving railway compartments for 
Europeans was illegal; (c) quotations from the liberal 
press of England, and (d) opinions of English liberals 
on Indian affairs. 

Imagine the dilemma of an Indian editor, who must 
conform to the Official Secrets Act, forbidding ‘‘news- 
paper criticisms likely to bring the Government, or 
constituted authority, into suspicion or contempt!’’ 

The Rowlatt Acts and the Defense of India Acts 
completely abrogate the liberties of the people. Ac- 
cording to the provisions of the Rowlatt Acts, which 
were passed against the unanimous opposition of the 
Indian members of the Legislatwe Council,— 

1. Any Indian is subject to arrest without warrant 
and is subject to unlimited detention without trial. 

2. The burthen of proof rests upon the accused. 

3. Trial by jury is denied. Right of appeal is de- 
nied. ‘‘No order under this act shall be called into 
question in any court and no swt or other legal pro- 
ceeding shall be against any person for anything which 
is in good faith done or intended to be done under this 
Acts 

4. The accused may be convicted of an offense with 
which he is not charged. 

5. The prosecution ‘‘shall not be bound to observe the 
rules of the law of evidence.’’ In other words the testi- 
mony of dead, absent and non-existent ‘‘witnesses’’ can 
be used against a suspect. 

6. The accused is denied the right of employing a 
lawyer or producing witnesses. 

7. The authorities are empowered to use ‘‘any and 
every means’’ in carrying out the law and obtaining 
confessions. This undoubtedly means torture. 

8. The accused is given a secret trial. The method 
of the procedure and the findings of the trial may not 
be made public. 

9. The accused is kept ignorant of the names and is 
not confronted with his accusers. 

10. Any person (even his or her own family) volun- 
tarily associating with an ex-political prisoner may be 
arrested and imprisoned. 

11. Any place or home can be’ searched without 
warrant. 


% 


INDIAN INDUSTRIES KILLED TO BENEFIT BRITAIN 


“‘The fiscal policy of India, during the past thirty or forty years, has been shaped far more in Man- 
chester than in Calcutta.’,—Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India. 
“British, policy in India is British trade.’’ William Pitt, British Prime Minister. 


India was the greatest trading nation of the Kast as 
early as 3,000 B. C. With 4,000 miles of seabeard, the 
best-built ships in the world and unexeelled textile prod- 
ucts, she did a gigantic business with China, Babylon 
and other Eastern nations. 

Marco Polo, the famous explorer of the thirteenth 
century, wrote: “‘The Coast of Coromandel produces the 
finest and most beautiful cottons to be found in any part 
of the world.”’ 

Baine, in his ‘‘History of Cotton Manufacture.’’ 


states: ‘‘India is the birthplace of cotton manufacture, 
where it probably flourished long before the dawn of 
authentic history. The Indians have in all ages main- 
tained an unapproached and almost incredible perfec- 
tion in their fabrics of cotton—some of their muslins 
might be thought the work of fairies or insects, rather 
than of men.’’ 

Up to the year 1813 Indian silk and eotton goods 
sold in England at a profit of from 50 to 60%, a fact 
which was bitterly resented by English traders and man- 


ufacturers. As early as 1678 they angrily protested 
against the admission of Indian goods, which, they con- 
tended, are ruining our ancient woolen manufactures.’’ 
About 1814 England levied a prohibitive import duty 
against Indian cotton and textile products. Jt was the 
death stroke. 

In 1831 the merchants of Bengal protested to His 
Majesty’s Privy Council for Trade that their business 
was ‘‘nearly superseded by the introduction of the fab- 
ric of Great Britain into Bengal, the importation of 
which augments every year to the great prejudice of 
native manufacturers.’’ They asked, as British subjects, 
for fair play. Their plea was ignored. 

A select Committee of the British House of Commons 
examined further Indian complaints in 1840 and found 
that ‘‘the displacement of Indian manufacturers is such 
that India is now dependent upon British manufacturers 
for its supply of those articles.’’ 

They also published these eloquent figures: 


Cotton Piece Goods Imported into Great Britain 
from the East Indies. 


TRAE Fi Eee Jee See ote bat CeCe 1,266,608 pieces. 
1835 306,086 pieces. 
British Cotton Manufactures Exported to India. 
1814 818,208 yards. 
1835 DI et oe (eyards: 
Thus was the cotton industry of India killed. 


Sir Charles Trevelyan, British-Indian official, testi- 
fied that the ruin of the cotton industry in India had re- 
sulted in the reduction of the population of Dacca, the 
great cotton manufacturing center, from 150,000 to 30,- 
000. He said that Dacca was rapidly becoming a jungle. 

According to other witnesses before this Select Com- 
mittee, the Indians turned to agriculture, chiefly. The 
story of their fate on the soil of India is told in a later 
chapter. 


SHIPBUILDING DESTROYED, TOO 


An English naval expert stated in 1911 that Indian- 
built ships lasted fifty years or more and that those built 
in Europe for Indian trade could not make more than 
six voyages with safety. Due to this superiority of con- 
struction ships were rapidly built on the banks of almost 
every navigable river in India. English shipbuilders 
borrowed many improvements from their Indian rivals. 

In 1857, 34,286 Indian-built ships entered and sailed 
from Indian ports. 

In April, 1863, the Indian Marine was abolished. It 
was reasoned that Indian-built ships would have to be 
manned by Indians and that this was ‘‘wndesirable,’’ 
‘“unadvisable’’ and ‘‘unpatriotic.’’ 

England’s policy has ever been, not the freedom of the 
seas, but a monopoly of the seas, and, wherever possible, 
a monopoly of the building and manning of every ship 
that sails the seas. Mark Sullivan, noted political 
writer, recited a remarkable instance of this spirit in 


‘“Collier’s Weekly,’’ of which he is a former editor. He 
told how a member of the House of Commons bitterly 
arraigned the Lloyd George Administration during the 
war because ships, carrying American goods from New 
York to South American ports, flew the Stars and 
Stripes! The indignant Briton grew blue in the face de- 
manding an explanation of this terrible outrage. Where 
was the good old Union Jack which always flew over 
these cargo ships freighting American goods in American 
waters? It did not occur to this gentleman that America 
had a right to build ships to carry her own products to 
a neighbouring nation. All he saw was, as he considered, 
the ill-mannered act of a formerly ignored eompetitor 
daring to carry his own goods under his own flag, instead 
of under the piratical Union Jack. 

In 1898, the number of Indian-bailt ships in commis- 
sion was 2,302. 

A year later they further decreased to 1,776. 

The English shipbwitders thus wiped out their rivals, 


DEVELOPMENT OF OTHER INDUSTRIES 
PREVENTED 


England permits India to grow jute because British 
capital controls that industry; to grow wheat because 
England depends for its food-stuffs on the outside world; 
to grow cotton.so that the mills of Lancashire may have 
the raw material they need and she encourages the 
growth of opium, because it is the most insidious and 
efficient weapon she has for stupifying the Orient in 
preparation for its commercial exploitation. 

On the other hand England sees to it that the tre- 
mendous industrial possibilities of India are not realized. 

As early as 1500 B. C. India was noted for its iron and 
steel products. Its smelters turned out the finest steel 
in the world and it found ready sale from Persia to 
London. Now, despite the fact that India has unlimited 
ore, the raw metal is shipped to England, manufactured 
there and sold back to India at twenty times the cost of 
the raw material. 

Hides, to the annual value of $50,000,000, are ex- 
ported. Shoes, saddles and all kinds of leather goods 
are imported. 

There are unlimited resources for manufacturing salt. 
Yet a large amount is annually imported. (On April 26, 
1906, Mohormulla, a merchant of Rajbarighat, was fined 
50 rupees by Subdivisional Magistrate Holmwood for 
not selling Liverpool salt.) 

India has the best soil in the world for sugar cane. 
Six million. pounds are imported. 

Almost every kind of dye material is found in India. 
400,000 pounds are imported. 

Oil seeds are exported.in huge quantity. The manu- 
factured oil is imported. 

So with their only large industries killed by England, 
and facing the embargo against further industrial devel- 
opment, the people of India are compelled to take up 
agriculture. They have no other choice. 


) 


AGRICULTURE HANDICAPPED—MILLIONS PERISH 


“The Government land tax does not leave enough food to the cultivator to support himself and 
his family throughout the year.’”—Sir Wm. Hunter, British-Indian official. 
“In the eleven years ending 1890 there were 840,713 peasants dispossessed of their land in the 


presidency of Bombay, because they could not pay the ‘Goverment land tax.’’—Hon. G. Rogers ue 
Indian Civil Service. 


Having destroyed the principal industries of India 
and prevented the development of others, England made 
little or no effort to see that the displaced scores of mil- 
lions of workers found a decent livelihood elsewhere. 

They turned to agriculture, as the English witnesses 


boil} 


testified before the House of Commons’ Committee, which 
held the inquest on the cotton industry. 


80 to 95% of the Indian people are now dependent on 
agriculture. 


The agricultural industry of India does not give these 


hundreds of millions even a bare existence. It is an abso- 
lute failure in this regard because of, (a) the intoler- 
able and ines. eee vovernment land tax; (b) the lack of 
capital; (c) the lack of education in improved means of 
pr A and (d) the lack of modern implements and 
fertilizers. 


The land tax provides one-third of the annual revenue 
of the country. It is levied, not on the actual produce, 
but on the area of the land. It is not reduced in years 
of famine. It increases with the value of the land. It is 
computed, not every year, but every ten or twenty years. 

It is confiscatory and wrong in the opinion of many 
Anglo-Indian officials, themselves. 

‘“‘The Government demands press so heavily on the 
people that all enterprise has been crushed,’’ said Colonel 
MacLean, Anglo-Indian official, 1867. ‘‘I have person- 
ally satisfied myself that i¢many instances the Govern- 
ment demand exceeds the gros8»rental assets of some 
villages.’ 

The only alibi adduced by Englishmen for the land 
tax is that it was bequeathed them by the old native 
rulers of India. They forget that then it was the only 
tax. They have imposed many other taxes. The com- 
bined burden is what is decimating India. 

The statement that the tillers of the soil lack capital 
needs no elaboration. The poverty of India is proverbial. 
Lacking capital, they can obtain’ neither: agoRELD, imple- 
ments nor the proper fertilizers. 

The Government, not content with éxtracting. the last 
penny from the unfortunaté agriculturist’'through the 
iniquitous land tax, has also\ deliberately neglected: its 
duty of educating him in the latest methods of farming 
and: other essentials. Lord Curzon, when he was Vice- 


roy, talked a lot about this matter, but we must, in this 
as in all other things, judge the Government of India, 
not by its roseate promises, but by its performances. 

The land is getting less productive every year. The 
Government seemingly does nothing to avert the result- 
ing and inevitable effect. 

In the seventeenth century, 223 pounds of cotton were 
grown to the acre in India. Today the yield is but 52 
pounds. Egypt grows 400 pounds to the acre, whilst 
Imperial Valley, California, grew 430 pounds to the 
acre in 1912. 

The Indian rice crop averages 800 pounds per acre. 
Europe grows 2,500 pounds to the acre, whilst California, 
in 1910 and 1911, averaged 2,500 to 9,000 pounds, ac- 
cording to the variety of seed sown. 

The wheat crop of India runs 11.44 bushels to an acre. 
The farmers of England and Ireland produce 32.41 
bushels from the same area. 

Java produces 8,000 pounds of sugar per acre as com- 
pared with India’s yield of 600 pounds. 

Whilst the exactions of the Government of India are 
primarily responsible for the dire poverty and chronic 
famines of India, conditions might be improved by spend- 
ing large sums of money on irrigation. Very little at- 
tention is paid, however, to irrigation and when money 
is expended on irrigation projects dividends of from 15 
to 30% are exacted. -How different from the native 
state of Baroda, where the Ghakwar limits the interest 
on irrigation loans and enterprises to 314¢%. It is the 
difference between the scientific extermination of a race 
and the rule of a‘wise leader, who loves his people and 
always has their mterest.at heart. 

~The famine question is inextricably woven with the 
agricultural problem. We will discuss it now. 


FOOD EXPORTED WHILST MILLIONS DIE OF STARVATION 


“Indian famines are famines of money, not of food.’”?—The late Lord George Hamilton, Under 


Secretary of State for India, 1901. 


‘Famine is a providential remedy for over-population.’ ’—Statement of Anglo-Indian official to 


Wm. Jennings Bryan. 


‘Half the agricultural population do not know from one year’s end to another what it is to have 
a square meal.’’—Sir Charles Elliot, Chief Commissioner of Assam. 


The largest quantity of wheat ever exported from 


This was in the 


India in one year was 2,150,000 tons. 
Millions per- 


year 1904-5. It was also a famine year. 
ished for want of a crust of bread. 
Cereals valued at $45,000,000, including 1,500 000. tons 


of wheat, were exported in ‘the year 1918-19. That was 


also a faminé year. 

Thirty-two millions of ie Indian people per Cited from 
preventable famine and plague that, year. 

Lord George Hamilton was right. There is plenty of 
food in India. But England ships it home and the Indi- 
ans starve to death. 

The rice crop of the year, 1917-18, erown on an area 
of 80,141,000 acres, was 36, 236, 000 tons. 

The rice crop of the year, 1918-19, grown on an area 
of 75,864,000 acres, was 23,670,000 tons. 

The decrease in production in one year was 12,566,000 
tons. The decrease in the yield per acre was more than 
300 pounds. 

* With India facing this shortage in the main food 
of her people, and scores of millions dying of starvation, 
a large part of the crop was shipped to Europe for the 
manufacture of liquor and starch. 

British apologists argue that; (a) famines are always 
occurring in India; (b) that they are due to insufficient 
rainfall; (c) that the mortality would be slight if the 
people would only produce more food to tide them over 


famine years, and (d) that they are due to the density 
of population. 

Sir Wilham Digby states from the eleventh century 
down to the year 1800 there were 22 famines, many of 
them local famines with light mortality. From the year 
1800 to 1900, according to this official, there were 31 
famines, all of them causing millions of deaths. The 
worst in the history of India was that of 1918-19, which 
swept off 32,000,000 people. 

India has the heaviest rainfall in the world. But it 
is not stored by the administrators, who believe that 
‘‘famine is a providential remedy for over-population.’’ 
Carnegie Ross, the British Consul in San Francisco, in 
an argument with Arthur Thomson, author of ‘‘The Con- 
spiracy against Mexico,’’ urged that ‘‘the main cause of 
famine in india is the earlier or later breaking of the 
Monsoon.’’ Thomson floored the Britisher by quoting 
a score of official authorities and figures which directly 
contradicted the consul’s ridiculous assertion. The rain- 
fall is not stored. So it doesn’t matter if it falls Monday 
morning or Saturday night, March or December. The 
year of the great Madras famine, 1877, sixty-six inches 
of rain fell. The Bombay famine of the previous year 
occurred when the rainfall was fifty inches. Fifty-two 
inches of rain fell in 1896 and forty-two inches in 1897, 
yet both were famine years. 

Increased production of food-stuffs is impossible with 


the Government of India paying no attention to agricul- 
ture. India produces enough food right now to tide her 
over famine years, but England grabs it. It is proved by 
official records that more food is shipped out of the coun- 
try in famine years than in non-famine years. 

The argument as to the density of the population is 
false, yet ingenious. People are apt to think of the huge 
population of India without regard to its area and so 
arrive at a false conclusion. India has 211 people to the 


square mile, Italy 294, China 266, Japan 317, Holland 
454 and Belgium 589. 

It has just now occurred to us that famine has also 
been attributed to the improvidence of the Indian people. 
The average annual income is about $10 a year. One 
meal of rice a day costs at least $11 a year. How could 
they be improvident? 

Famine is a weapon of Government in India. England 
cannot escape its blood guilt. 


EDUCATION OF INDIAN PEOPLE OBSTRUCTED 


It has been truly said that the wealth of a nation 
lies, not in its gold and diamonds and lke valuables, 
but in the minds and bodies of its people. A people 
alert, physically and mentally, can conquer oigantic 
obstacles. The reverse is equally true. A people of 
poor physique with no education are overwhelmingly 
handicapped in the battle of life. 


The theft of India’s physical wealth by England 
would not have hurt India, if the peculation stopped 
there. In addition to robbing them England disarmed 
them, starved their bodies and robbed them of any 
chance of education. In brief, she devoted her whole 
energy to the assassination of the country! 


India has been so consistently lied about that it is al- 
most impossible to counteract the idea that England has 
conferred a great boon on India by taking over the 
country. ‘‘Just think of all the splendid schools Eng- 
land establishes in India,’’ said a lady who had just 
heard an English propagandist lecture... A friend, who 
knew something of the subject, replied: ‘‘I am think- 
ing of the splendid culture England has almost destroyed 
there.’’ 

India was highly civilized five thousand years ago. 
A Hindu invented the decimal system. A Hindu, Arya 
Bhatta, discovered the rotation of the earth on its own 
axis. Copernicus afterwards reaped the credit. Scien- 
tifie grammars were known in India as early as 1400 
B. C. The first medical and surgery schools were es- 
tablished in India. 
physicians back to Greece with him because they were 
the most skilled physicians he met in any of the coun- 
tries he conquered. ‘‘We owe our first system of medi- 
cine to the Hindus,’’ admitted Dr. Royle, noted physician 
of King’s College, London, when he reviewed the his- 
tory of his profession. 

An educated people will not submit to slavery. Lord 
Ellenborough saw that if the people were properly edu- 
cated England would have to get out. The directors of 
the East India Company promulgated a similar doc- 
trine almost a century before. ‘‘We have lost America 
from our folly in allowing the establishment of schools. 
Ii would not do for us to repeat the same act of folly 
in regard to India.’’ And as late as August 7th, 1915, 
Mr. Watson of the Senate of the University of Cal- 
eutta moved the following resolution: ‘‘That the Senate 
views with alarm the rapid increase in the percentage 
of passes in the university examinations, and desires an 
immediate inquiry to be held as to its causes and sig- 
nificance.’’ India is about the only country in the 
world where the spread of education is ‘‘viewed with 
alarm !’’ 


“The political ruin of England would be the inevitable consequence of the education of the 
Hindu.”?—Lord Ellenborough, Viceroy of India, in 1842. 

‘Anything less Machiavellian than our conduct in this whole matter of education it would be 
hard to conceive.”—William Archer in his “India and the Future.”’ 

‘The Hindus were Darwinians many centuries before Darwin, and evolutionists many centuries 
before the doctrine of evolution had been accepted by the scientists of our times, and before any word 
like ‘evolution’ existed in any language of the world.””—Sir Monier Williams. 


Alexander the Great brought Hindu | 


The following statistics will explain the educational 
situation in India today: 


Expenditure 

per Head. Literacy. 
United@states: 2y..ame.o- a. $4.00 92.0: 
England and Wales ......-....- 3.20 Oe 
Ue nace: wy SE 2 CARN LO; 92.5 
el AD Ieee aes eae nee OED op 90.0 
TN Dia gies hen eee tas 2s! 0214 8.0 


What a change from the days when India’s philoso- 
phers, divines, poets and scientists were noted all over 
the world for their achievements! After 150 years of 
British rule India is only 8% literate. After twenty 
years of American rule, the Philippines are 60% lter- 
ate. And Iceland, which nobody covets, is 100% literate! 

The United States has 300,000 schools. India, with 
three times the population of the United States, has 
180,000 schools. 

India has 218 technical institutions. 
fifth of India’s population, has 846. 

The native state of Baroda spends 13¢ per head on 
education. British India spends 214¢; 79% of the boys 
of Baroda go to school; 21.5% of the boys of British 
India go to school; 81.6% of the girls of Baroda at- 
tended school in 1914-15; 4% of the girls of British 
India attended school. Education is compulsory in Ba- 
roda. It is not compulsory in British: India. This 
comparison holds good for the rest of the native states. 

India has made many unsuccessful fights for the 
institution of free and compulsory education. The last 
one was in 1911, when Mr. Gokhale introduced a bill in 
the Imperial Legislative Council. It was killed by the 
vote of the appointed members. 

J. N. Tata, the Bombay industrial magnate, made a 
bequest of $1,000,000 in 1901 for the establishment of 
an educational institute. The project was scientifically 
sabotaged by the Government of India. It took them 
ten years to consider how the money could best be used. 
Finally the institute opened with seventeen students! 
‘‘Publie opinion holds that the teaching is incompetent, 
and that no education worthy the name is being im- 
parted,’’ says Lajpat Rai in ‘‘ England’s Debt to India.’’ 

The question of free and compulsory education is still 
to the front in India. The people realize that it is tre- 
mendously vital to the nation. The London Times’ plea 
that ‘‘Edueation will only accentuate trouble, for edu- 
cated men and women will not suffer the conditions 
now imposed on the Bombay working classes,’’ is a 
correct resume of the situation. 

An educated people will not submit to slavery. There- 
fore England dreads the education of the Indian. 


Japan, with one- 


SUBJECT PEOPLES RAPED, TORTURED AND MURDERED 


‘‘What happened to the young Corporal, who, in a fit of excitement, shot the first native he met? 
Was he put on trial? 


Was he hanged ? 


If we are not strong enough to prevent murder, then our 


Pharisaic glorification of the stern justice of the British Raj is nonsense.””—Lord Morley, then Secretary 
of State for India, in letter to Lord Minto, who was Viceroy of India, August 19, 1908. 


England has always 
sought to impress her rule 
on subject peoples 
through the assassination 
and deportation of na- 
tional leaders, the rape 
of their women and the 
wholesale murder of 
masses of defenseless 
men, women and children. 

British rule in India 
possesses these character- 
istics and many others. 
The Indian has absolutely 
no rights in his own land. 
‘*British blood has con- 
quered India and rules 
it, and respect and defer- 
ence must be shown to it 
at all times and in all places,’’ declared ‘‘The Civil and 
Military Gazette’’ of the Punjab on September 5, 1906. 


ce 


BANTA SINGH 
Indian Nationalist, crushed to death 
between two wheels for the alleged 
murder of a police spy at Lahore a 


few years ago. The official sentence 


was ‘‘hanging.’’ 


The British enforce this ‘‘respect and deference’’ in 
many ways. An Indian must step off the sidewalk if 
he sees a Britisher coming. He must travel in a ‘‘Jim 
Crow’’ railway coach and never dare to enter a coach 
‘‘Reserved for Europeans.’’ This ‘‘Jim Crow’’ law is 
so strictly enforeed that even Indians who have at- 
tained high rank in the Government and are obse- 
quiously servile to the enslavers of their country, are 
often kicked bodily out of coaches reserved for Brit- 
ishers. Indian judges, often of the higher courts, are 
the victims of some young British leutenant. If any 
Indians resist invasion of their rights and bring their 
assailants into court the latter demand to be tried as 
‘‘Kuropean subjects.’’ This means that they are tried, 
not by a jury of Indians but by a jury on which a 
majority of Englishmen sit. For the sake of effect 
now and then a few petty Indian officials are also im- 
panelled. ‘‘In trials in which Englishmen are tried by 
English juries the result 1s sometimes a faalure of jus- 
tice not falling short of judicial scandal,’’? says Sir 
Henry Cotton, a former Anglo-Indian official. 


If the superior Briton kills the offending Indian the 
result is about the same. If he is not openly acquitted 
he pays a small fine or serves a short jail sentence. 


Superintendent Henderson of the Telinpara Jute Mill, 
near Bombay, kicked a native to death. He was fined 
the equivalent of $32. 


MeGee, an overseer of the Howrah Jute Mill, on the 
outskirts of Caleutta, shot a native dead. He was fined 
the equivalent of $48. Note the fine distinction. McGee 
was penalized $16 more than Henderson. The judge 
perhaps thought that Henderson was the more brutal 
terrorist and made a more lasting impression on the 
natives who saw him kicking his victim into eternity. 


In the fall of 1907 a British journalist, resident in 
Lahore, shot his Indian servant dead. He got six months’ 
simple imprisonment. 


Lieutenant H. R. Plunkett, without cause, shot a fruit 
seller dead in Lahore. Judge Broadway eulogized the 


defendant to the jury and urged his youth and inex- 
perience as the cause of his murdering the Indian. The 
jury, needless to say composed of Englishmen and a 
few safe Indians, promptly acquitted the murderer. 


Lieutenant C. M. Maclorron of Allahabad suspected 
two native servants of theft. He bound and gagged 
both of them and burned the soles off their feet with a 
redhot poker. He was sentenced to six months’ simple 
imprisonment. 


It should be mentioned that these sentences are sel- 
dom served. They are on a par with the case of Captain 
Colthurst, who shot Sheehy-Skeffington in Ireland with- 
out trial or the opportunity of bidding farewell to his 
devoted wife. This gallant Briton, who learned his 
barbarism whilst serving in India, spent a few weeks 
in an alleged lunatic asylum and was then returned to 
duty ‘‘perfectly cured.’’ 


AN IRISH AMRITSAR. 


In a thrilling speech, 
delivered in Chicago, IIl- 
inois, toward the end of 
March, 1920, Eamon De 
Valera, President of Ire- 
land, gave a graphie in- 
stance of English hatred 
of Ireland: 


‘‘There was fell pur- 
pose in the ordering of 
Irish divisions to (Gal- 
lipoli and the murderous 
deserts of Mesopotamia, 
after they had _ volun- 
teered to fight, because 


they considered they 
were fighting for the 
freedom not only of 


others, but of their own 
: small nation. « 
- 20REES 


EAMON DE VALERA 
President of Ireland, 


‘‘Let me give you an 
instance. In Mesopo- 
tamia the barracks of the 
British forces were plastered with notices which read: 
‘Do not leave this room for any purpose between 8 a. m. 
and 5 p.m.’ and ‘If Turks are seen in the distance 
during the day hours, do not fire or move.’ Jt was 
death to move im that heat. But one day 1100 Irish 
were ordered to march at midday to a point forty miles 
distant. They went. 


‘‘No Turks were there. Four hundred died on the 
march, The next morning they were ordered back. 
Of the 1100 not one lived to see the post they left. And 
not a shot had been fired. It is not our hatred of Eng- 
land that breeds this strife. It is England’s hatred 
Onmusi 


Those uninformed Americans who wonder why Ire- 
land did not put her manhood at the service of Eng- 
land in the late war should ponder over this massacre 
of 1100 young Irishmen. 


STUDENTS FLOGGED AT RANDOM. 


At Kasur and many other places parties of students were flogged. They were not individually guilty of any 
crime. They were picked at random and flogged, because the authorities considered the atmosphere of the 
colleges as ‘‘seditious,’? and the students took part in nationalist demonstrations. 

_ Professor Rai, Vice-President of the Lahore Sanatan Dharma College, testified before the Hunter Com- 
mission that the Publicity Board of the Government of India posted bulletins at the college containing the fol- 
lowing statements: 

‘People should take no interest in politics. It is the rulers who know the art of government. You should 
all live a life of seclusion and not dabble in polities. 

“Those who criticise the government wash their hands in their own blood.”’ 


9 


SHAMELESS VIOLATION OF WOMEN 


“WE REGARD WOMEN AS SACRED.” 
—General Dyer, testifying before the Hunter 
Commission. 


Where do Englishmen really regard women as sacred? 
They certainly don’t regard the women of India, Egypt, 
Africa or Ireland as sacred. After reading the Kng- 
lish press for thirty years we cannot see that they re- 
gard even their own women as sacred. 

The women of India have been sacrificed wholesale 
to the lust of the British army of occupation. Moore, 
British Station-master at Rawalpindi, was found guilty 
of raping a young Indian girl. He was nominally dis- 
missed from the service. The unfortunate girl com- 
mitted suicide. Six British soldiers outraged a little 
cirl at Jhalkati. They were reduced in rank. The great 
mass of the culprits go free. Where Indian men have 
been active in defending the honor of their women, they 
have been victimized by officials. Two privates belong- 
ing to the Ninth Lancers beat a native to death for re- 
fusing to ensnare Indian women to cater to the lust of 
the regiment. This occurred whilst Lord Curzon was 
Viceroy. The murder got such publicity that the Viceroy 
was compelled by public opinion to discipline the regi- 
ment. The actual murderers, well known to the entire 
regiment, were shielded. 

The English in India have set a very low standard of 
morals in the treatment of their own women. Mrs. Alice 
Kees was recently convicted in Caleutta of leasing her 
fourteen-year-old sister, Adelaide Philben, to a Mrs. 
Mitchell, who ran a house of prostitution patronized by 
officials. She was sentenced to three months’ simple 
imprisonment and a fine of $60. W. J. Brewin was 
sentenced to tivo months’ simple imprisonment for erim- 
inally assaulting Dorothy Evans, a little nine-year-old 
girl. K. Morgan was fined $30, with the alternative of 
one month’s imprisonment, for the same offense. His 
victim, however, was a matured woman. 

Indian women are not the only victims of the armies 
of Britain. 


AFRICA 


The girls of Nigeria, a British protectorate in Africa, 
are so abused by British officials and others of that na- 
tionality, that mulatto children are being born whole- 
sale. If a black man resents the seizure of his wife. 
daughter or sweetheart by a Britisher he is got out of 
the way often by unscrupulous means. If the victim 
appeals to the British Commissioner he is often subjected 
to arbitrary punishment for his pains. 

The practice of flogging native women naked was 
brought out in a libel suit against John Eldred Taylor, 
editor of the ‘‘ African Telegraph,’’ last December. Mr. 
Taylor published an account of the flogging of two na- 
tive women found on the premises of a British officer. 
They were, after being divested of every stitch of cloth- 
ing, flogged in publi at the instigation of the officer. 

‘“Why didn’t you complain of this to Governor-Gen- 
eral Sir Frederick* Lugard?’’ demanded the government 
counsel of Mr. Taylor. 

‘Because the Governor-General, himself, stated in an 
article he wrote for the Edinburgh Review that ‘the only 
way to subjugate and tame the African native is Ly 
flogging him,’ ’’ replied the African editor. 


EGYPT 


Every reader of this pamphlet should procure or 
borrow a copy of the Egyptian White Book. The office 
of the Egyptian Commission is 420 Southern Building, 
Washington, D. C. 


10 


The atrocities committed on the women of Egypt by 
the British army of occupation make heartrending read- 
ing. Affidavits by mayors of Egyptian cities, respcnsi- 
ble police officials and school teachers relate details of 
British rapine and murder which baffle description. 

Mayor Mansour El D’Ali of the city of Bedrechein 
tells how he was knocked unconscious by a stroke of the 
butt of a rifle, when he attempted to go to the assistance 
of his wife, his daughters and daughters-in-law who 
were being raped by a gang of British soldiers. 

Hussein el Mohr, married man, stated in the course 
of his affdavit: ‘‘Fifteen British soldiers entered my 
house and looted the jewelry and money. The women, 
panic stricken, ran upstairs and we went also. The sol- 
diers followed us. They indecently assaulted one of 
the women and one of them committed rape on her. I 
attempted to enter the room, but was threatened by the 
soldiers with their rifles. My brother cried out, saying: 
‘We have endured everything, but we cannot see our 
women raped. This is insupportable!’ He rushed into 
the room and was instantly shot. He died the next day. 
The soldiers stayed with the women a long time. J, 
with my very eyes saw my own wife, Aisha, being raped. 
I think no woman eseaped that disgrace.’”’ 

Mahmud Abdel Hadi was held by four soldiers whilst 
two others raped his sister. When they satisfied their 
lust they shot her and set the house on fire. The be- 
reaved brother escaped and saved his life by jumping 
from the roof of one house to another till morning. 


.TRELAND 


The Republican government of Ireland is so well or- 
ganized that Irish women are comparatively safe. How- 
ever, when the British soldiers have the opportunity 
they violate unguarded women. Two httle Irish girls 
were recently admitted to the Curragh Family Hospital, 
County Kildare, in a dying condition, the result of being 
criminally assaulted by Privates Neill and Rutherford 
of the Scottish Rifles. 

The English courts, as in India and elsewhere, are 
very lenient with these brutes. The ‘‘Dublin Independ- 
ent’’ of January 16th, 1920, states that Private William 
Roberts of the Royal Field Artillery was fined but $25 
for indecently assaulting a little Irish boy. 

Such decisions are a semi-approval of the commission 
of these dastardly offenses. 


GOVERNMENT DRUGS PEOPLE WITH 
OPIUM AND LIQUOR 


“‘The Government is driving the liquor trade 
as hard as it can in India. If the Government 
continues its present policy of doubling. its 
revenue every ten years, in thirty years India 
will be one of the most drunken and degraded 
nations on the face of the earth.”—wW. S. 
Caine, M. P., in speech in the House of Com- 
mons in 1888. 


The Indian nation is not a ‘‘drunken and degraded’’ 
one today. India has bitterly fought the liquor traffic 
since England instituted it to steal the senses of the 


Indian. And though Archbishop Jefferies, who did 
missionary work in India for 31 years, states that: ‘‘The 
drinking practices of England have made a thousand 
drunkards for every Indian converted to Christianity,’’ 
India has not accepted the vice to a serious extent. 
Thirty years ago a prohibition movement was started 
in Bombay. The Government immediately imprisoned 
eight leaders. In informing London of this drastic ae- 
tion the Bombay authorities said: ‘‘The question for 
decision is, shall we sit quiet and allow the temperance 
movement to continue and to spread, and thereby for- 


feit a large amount of revenue, or are measures to be 
adopted which shall bring the people to their senses ?’’ 

Despite this unprecedented action the Indian people 
continued to fight the liquor traffic with the result that 
- the people did not succumb to the extent the Government 
expected. 


OPIUM IS THE REAL CURSE OF INDIA 


The Indian opium traffic is not only the curse of 
India, but the curse of the whole world! For opium, 
grown in India, is smuggled into the United States to 
devour thousands of our own flesh and blood, who are 
every day falling victims to this official product of the 
Government of India. 

The British Blue Funnel Liner, ‘‘The Cyclops,’’ was 
raided last summer in Seattle and found to contain 778 
tins of opium, 670 ounces of cocaine and 16 ounces of 
cocaine not listed in the ship’s mamfest. On June 24th, 
1919, according to the ‘‘Seattle Union Record,’’ the ship 
was fined $49,265, 

How many British liners of the ‘‘Cyclops’’ brand 
entered our ports for the past ten years? Can it be 
that Britain, who carefully safeguards herself against 
the drug, has no compunction about smuggling it in 
here? 

The rapid increase in the number of drug addicts in 
this country provides food for reflection. 

Is the Government of India the real culprit? 

India realizes, and has always realized, the deadliness 


of the opium menace. Her incessant opposition to the 
growth of opium in India at the instigation of England, 
masquerading as the Government of India, resulted in 
an investigation of the traffic by a Royal Commission 
in 1893. But eight out of nine of the members saw noth- 
ing but merit in opium! 

The receipts from the traffic increased 44%. in the 
year 1916-17. The receipts from liquor and other drugs 
increased 48%. 

Ellen N. La Motte, in her impressive book ‘‘The 
Opium Monopoly,’’ seathingly criticises the English Gov- 
ernment for its forcing this deadly drug on the Indian 
people in these terms: ‘‘A nation that can subjugate 
300,000,000 helpless people, and then turn them into 
drug addicts—for the sake of revenue—is a nation which 
commits a cold-blooded atrocity unparalleled by any 
atrocities committed in the rage and heat of war. The 
Blue Book shows no horror at the increase of 44% in 
opium consumption, and the increase of 67% in the 
use of other habit-forming drugs. Approval, and a 
shrewd appreciation of the possibilities for more revenue 
from ‘progressively higher rates of duty,’ knowing well 
that drug addicts will sell body and soul in order to 
procure their daily supply.’’ 

This treatment of a so-called ‘‘heathen’’ nation by 
one which aspires to lead the Christian white civiliza- 
tion of the world, must provide food for the grave 
thought of those who treasure the olden ideals and his- 
tory of the Anglo-Saxon race. 


GOVERNMENT OF ALIENS 


or punished in the course of one year for different 
crimes ranging from torture to common assault. 

Promotion is gained by a maximum of convictions. 
Consequently the police have a habit of torturing inno- 
cent people into confessions of gilt. In the Punjab in 
March, 1909, three men accused of the murder of a 
woman pleaded guilty under police pressure. Just as 
their trial started the woman walked into the courtroom 
alive and well. 

On December 5, 1911, it was officially stated in the 
British House of Commons that 57 Indian police officers 
had been convicted of ill-treating prisoners during the 
previous few years and that death had ensued in 17 
cases. 


(Continued from Page 3) 


Police frame-ups are common in India. Hundreds 
of Indian patriots are rotting in Andaman Island dun- 
geons from this cause. Some, of course, fail. The per- 
jury, or some other mechanism of the frame-up machine, 
jams. 

The machine jammed in the famous Midnapur case 
in the Province of Bengal in 1909. Three men were 
convicted of a conspiracy to use bombs, which were 
found in their possession. The British High Court of 
Calcutta reversed the conviction on the ground that 
the confessions, on which the convictions were based, 
had been extorted by torture and that the defense 
charge that the police, themselves, had manufactured 
and placed the bombs was not unlikely. 


THE INDIAN LABOR AND SWADESHI MOVEMENTS 


But a short while ago the Indian factory worker 
worked for from seventeen to twenty-two hours a day! 
The report of the Indian Factory Labor Commission in 


1911 resulted in a reduction of the hours to twelve. Dr. 
Nair filed a dissenting opinion and condemned the sug- 
gestions of the majority as temporizing and inadequate 
to meet the situation. 

Today Indian labor does not wait for governmental 
action to alleviate the intolerable industrial situation. 

Three hundred thousand Indian workers recently 
struck in Bombay for better conditions. They won after 
many of the strikers were killed by the British army 
which was at the beck and call of the employers. The 
strikers demanded a nine-hour workday, a large increase 
in wages, a full hour instead of a half-hour for lunch, 
the limiting of the age of child workers to 12 years, full 
pay for disabled workers during the period of their 
disablement, the early closing of the liquor shops which 
are considered detrimental to the interest of labor and 
many other important things. Because the dread cholera 
was slowly creeping from the workers’ district toward 


11 


““A system more likely to bring about degradation of labor is impossible to conceive.”’—Dr. Sev. 
Nair of the Indian Factory Labor Commission on 


the factory system. 


the rich residential district, the employers suddenly made 
important concessions. The workers were granted a ten- 
hour day, a 40% increase in wages, full pay for disabled 
workers and many other demands. 

This is the first big victory of the Organized Labor 
movement of India. 

The next strike will be for the introduction of the 
co-operative system in the ownership and management 
of Bombay mills and factories. 

Before Labor organized industrial conditions in India 
were deplorable. In some districts they still exist. The 
workers had to leave home at 4:30 o’clock in the morning 
and did not return till 8 o’clock at night. They worked 
seventeen to twenty-two hours a day. The mortality in 
the one-room industrial tenements of Bombay was 675 
per 1000 in 1916. The physique of the industrial work- 
ers was so impaired that, according to official statistics, 
they were exceeded in weight by the prisoners in the 
different jails and penitentiaries. The prisoner in Bom- 
bay Jail weighed 112 pounds. The factory operative 
weighed but 102 pounds. In the United Provinces the 


average weight of the jail inmates was 115 pounds. The 
weight of the factory worker was 107 pounds. This 
physical deterioration was, of course, mainly due to low 
wages and insufficient food. 

The Government in 1919 clapped many strike leaders 
in prison and broke strikes by putting soldiers in the 
places of the strikers. This is no longer feasible. The 
strikes are so large now that the whole British army of 
occupation would have to go to work if the policy were 
continued. 

Hand in hand with the increasingly powerful Organ- 
ized Labor movement of India goes the Swadeshi move- 
ment, which pledges the individual to wear only clothing 
of native manufacture and to destroy ‘‘all foreign cloth 
in their possession.’’ Whilst primarily intended to as- 
sist in the revival of the textile industries, the Swadeshi 
movement aims at the fostering of all native Indian in- 
dustries. It is vigorously fought by the British Gov- 


ernment. In 1906 merchants were fined for refusing 
to sell English products, a British magistrate, Dunlop, 
personally flogged a little Indian boy for shouting Bande 
Mataram (Hail Motherland!), the Swadeshi rallying ery, 
and printers, students, merchants, lecturers and editors 
were terrorized and imprisoned for the crime of advocat- 
ing the manufacture and use of Indian manufactured 
goods. 

A slight increase in the number of cotton mills is no- 
ticeable as the result of the Swadeshi movement. It re- 
ceived quite an impetus during the war when factories 
were started to produce war material, which could not 
be turned out in sufficient quantity in England. 

The Indian people see great possibilities for good in 
both the Labor and Swadeshi movements. Their future 
development will be watched with great interest by the 
entire world. 


INDIA’S MEN AND MONEY CONSCRIPTED FOR “DEMOCRACY” 
eee creer ere mee een a elders 
“India was bled absolutely white during the first few weeks of the war.’’—Lord Hardinge, for- 
mer Viceroy of India, in speech in House of Lords, July, 1917. 


‘“‘The people of India have no voice in this or any other act of Government. 


It is sheer dishon- 


esty.”’—The London Nation referring to war “‘gift’’ of $500,000,000 from the Government of India. 

“Women were kidnapped till their relations who fled from the recruiting officers returned or en- 
listed. Men were forced to stand naked in the presence of their women and often driven naked 
through thorny bushes. The crops of those who fled from the recruiting officers were in many in- 
stances destroyed and their houses looted. Women were abused in the presence of their men folk.” 
—From evidence given before the Hunter Commission on the Indian system of ‘“‘voluntary enlist- 


ment” by A. H. Khan, Revenue Official. 


During the recent war England convinced a good 
many people, ignorant of the situation in India, that 
India had thrown herself, heart and soul, into the great 
war for ‘‘democracy and the preservation of small 
nations.’’ 

It was a lie! 

Some Indians were deceived. The Indian people were 
not deceived. There are always people, blinded by their 
great faith in humanity, who can be hoodwinked by 
charlatans. And when David Lloyd George solemnly 
declared: ‘‘As the Lord liveth, England does not seek a 
yard of territory. We are in this war from motives of 
purest chivalry to defend the weak,’’ there were some 
Indians who believed the great political chameleon. And 
when their faith was waning, America, their land of 
dreams and, to their minds, the greatest influence for 
universal liberty, entered the conflict with the solemn 
pledge that all nations, without distinction as to size, 
would be granted self-determination. The pledge given 
all mankind by Woodrow Wilson was breathed as a 
prayer by the Indian: 

‘““The Allies are fighting for the liberty, the self-gov- 
ernment and the undictated development of all peoples, 
and every feature of the settlement, that concludes this 
war, must be conceived and executed for that purpose.’’ 

British propagandists told America that India, in its 
war exuberancy, forced a ‘‘gift’’ of $500,000,000 upon 
the ‘‘mother country,’’ and ‘‘voluntarily’’ raised a huge 
army in return for the blessings of British civilization. 

And these lies, for they are lies, are repeated even 
now. And, sorry to relate, they are still swallowed. 

The ‘‘gift’’ of $500,000,000 was made to England by 
English officials, who constitute the Government of 
India. The Indian Legislative Council was never con- 
sulted. 

‘‘Tt is sheer dishonesty,’’ said the London Nation. 
‘The people of India have no voice in this or any other 
act of government. If they had, they would be forced 
to think before contributing out of their dire poverty 
this huge sum to the resources of their wealthy rulers.’’ 

‘For Mr. Chamberlain to throw upon the Indian 


9) 


12 


people the responsibility for originating and devising 
the $500,000,000 contribution, and the protective duties 
connected with it, is as unconvineing a rhetorical excuse 
as the House of Commons has listened to for many a 
long day,’’ commented the Manchester Guardian. 

England bought huge war supplies from India. They 
consisted in part of 70,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 
1,500,000 tons of wheat, 2,250,000 pounds of wool and 
blankets, 1,500 miles of railway equipment and similarly 
large quantities of boots, shoes, rifles, ete. 

England then made herself a gift of $500,000,000 to 
pay for part of this war equipment. 

In other words she robbed the defenseless people of 
India of these vast stores in order to fasten her rule 
more securely upon India, Egypt, Ireland and the other 
enslaved nations and to grab the German colonies and 
trade. 

The lie that India furnished an army of volunteers is 
made out of whole cloth. England terrorized the Indian 
people into furnishing an army of conscripts. Every 
village in Northern India was compelled to furnish a 
certain number of recruits. If it failed to furnish its 
quota it was punished. If men fled from the recruiting 
officers their crops were destroyed and their homes 
robbed. 

The two sons of Gauhar Singh, head man of a village 
near Gujranwala in the Punjab, fled from the recruiting 
officers. The father was arrested, his property confis- 
cated, he was dismissed from his official position, and it 
was ordered that, unless his sons surrendered, any per- 
son touching his property or cultivating his crops, was 
to be instantly shot. 

The evidence of A. H. Khan, government revenue 
official, given before the Hunter Commission, gives pos- 
itive proof of the atrocities committed upon the unfor- 
tunate people to compel their participation in the war. 

England states that 1,401,350 Indians fought. Canada, 
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the other 
British colonies contributed 1,548,701 men. 

What was India’s reward for contributing this huge 
army and the $500,000,000 ‘‘gift’’! 


AMRITSAR 


The startling Amritsar massacre was the act of panic- 
stricken autoerats. They were panic-stricken because 
they recognized in the nation-wide protest of the Indian 
people against the enactment of the Rowlatt Acts, a 
force which, by its mere passivity and proportions, was 
at once menacing and invincible. When the puppet, 
Dyer, mowed down two thousand unarmed Indians at 
Amritsar, he wasn’t shooting merely at the crowd. He 
was shooting at the Spirit of India—that Spirit which 
saw Greece and Rome rise and fall and which, from its 
throne in the Himalayas, shall similarly witness the 
decay and death of the British Empire, founded on 
greed and sustained by brute force. 


The Rowlatt Acts, which swept away every right and 
constitutional safeguard of the Indian people, were de- 
signed to check the great reaction which was inevitable 
when the Indian people faced the fact that the war was 
not fought for their self-determination, or that of any 
other people, and that Lloyd George’s glitterimg prom- 
ises Were on a par with all of England’s past promises 
—made in moments of emergency and repudiated on the 
eve of their supposed fulfilment. 


The fiction was carefully spread by Indian officials 
that the Rowlatt Acts were necessary to check the spread 
of anarchy, Bolshevism and all that was abhorrent in 
revolutionary doctrines. But the Rowlatt Commission, 
in recommending the enactment of the Acts, completely 
gave the game away, when they admitted: ‘There will, 
especially in the Punjab, be a large number of disbanded 
soldiers, among whom it may be possible to stir up dis- 
content.’’ 

The Punjab contains 14 per cent of the population of 
India. It contributed 40 per cent of the Indian Army. 
‘There is enough military material in the Punjab to 
shake down the empires of Europe,’’ once remarked 
Lord George Hamilton. 

Hence the fear of England that these splendid fighters, 
disbanded, disillusioned, and even disarmed, would tear 
down the tyranny which, they were told, was to be 
scrapped as a result of the great and glorious deliver- 
ance of the world from the dreadful curse of Prus- 
sianism ! 

But that much-berated system had not been killed! 
It had but moved from beneath the Black Eagles of 
Prussia to the protecting embrace of the Union Jack of 
England! 


THE GREAT PROTEST 


Mahatma Gandhi, prominent Nationalist leader, or- 
ganized a passive resistance movement in protest against 
the Rowlatt Acts. It began on April 6, 1919, with the 
closing of all shops and places of business, the people 
joining in one monster voice of indignation and sorrow. 

Satyagrahis, as the participants were termed, took the 
following solemn vow: ‘‘ We shall bear any abuse, any 
insult, any violence, any suffering, even unto death, with- 
out hatred, without resistance as brave men, as martyrs 
determined to maintain the truth at all cost.’’ 

Two hundred thousand people were present at the big 
protest meeting in Calcutta. One hundred thousand at- 
tended the Delhi demonstration. In every important 
center the people met and passively protested. 

The outstanding feature of this mighty demonstration 
was the display of Hindu-Mohammedan unity. England 
has always done her utmost to keep the two races divided 
and she has always represented to the outside world 
that her presence in India was absolutely necessary to 
keep them from one another’s throat. Their joint par- 
ticipation in this great protest bore a deep significance 
for the invader. 


13 


England’s reply was aeroplane bombings, machine 
gun massacres, public floggings, widespread deportations 
and the reopening of the closed shops and stores at the 
point of the bayonet. If the shops were not opened 
soldiers were put in charge. In Lahore, Colonel Frank 
Johnson said the soldiers put in charge ‘‘would not be 
authorized either to make book entries or receive pay- 
ments. ’’ 

Before we detail the terroristic practices indulged in 
by the British in the different parts of the Punjab, it is 
perhaps proper to examine one persistent charge made 
against the participants in this memorable protest, viz., 
that it was the result of Bolshevist influence. This charge 
has been made by all the now discredited militarists and 
also, we are sorry to say, by Mrs. Annie Besant. This 
lady has always ‘‘proof positive’’ that Indian revolu- 
tionaries are swayed by gold. During the war it was 
German gold.’ Now it is Bolshevist gold. The people of 
India are so incensed at her continual baseless allega- 
tions and her fulsome eulogies of the fake Home Rule 
bill that she is now howled down every time she attempts 
to address a public meeting. 

‘‘T found no trace of Bolshevik influence behind the 
disturbanees,’’ swore Police Superintendent Orde of 
Delhi before the Hunter Commission. 

‘‘There was no conspiracy to create rebellion, 
Police Superintendent Broadway of Lahore. 

‘“‘T was not aware of any revolutionary movement,’’ 
testified Commissioner Kitchin of Amritsar. 

Surely these police officials are just as watchful of 
the interests of empire as General Dyer and Mrs. 
Besant! 


” stated 


THE BIG TRAGEDY! 


On April 10th the Amritsar authorities secretly de- 
ported Kitchlew and Satyapal, leaders of the local pro- 
test movement. When the people went to Commissioner 
Kitchin to protest against the deportation and ask for 
the restoration of their leaders they were fired on and 
several of them killed. 

The people immediately got out of control. They de- 
stroyed two banks, the town hall and a telegraph sta- 
tion. Three English bank officials were killed. It is 
charged that about $600,000 was looted from the de- 
stroyed banks. On January 13th, 1920, one Sub-Inspec- 
tor, several head constables and about twenty ordinary 
police constables were arrested and charged with having 
a lot of this stolen money in their possession. An Eng- 
lish woman, Miss Sherwood, was severely beaten by some 
enraged Indians because she refused to admit men, 
wounded by English soldiers, into a hospital of which 
she was in charge. A lot of propaganda was centered 
about this incident. General Dyer made Indians, using 
the street in which she was beaten, crawl on their stom- 
achs as a punishment. It was in connection with this 
punishment that he coined his unconscious witticism: 
‘““We, Englishmen, regard women as sacred.’’ Miss 
Sherwood is in good health again and recently stated 
in an Indian paper: ‘‘It was Indians who rescued me, 
an Indian house that gave me shelter and Indian hands 
that first dressed my wounds.’’ She also refused a 
large monetary gift offered her by the Government. 
She evidently thinks that her case has been over-ex- 
ploited by the British military butchers. 

General Dyer arrived in Amritsar on April 11th, con- 
dueted his massacre on April 13th and declared Martial 
Law on April 15th. The declaration of martial law on 
the 15th was evidently an after-thought and, in his opin- 
ion perhaps, perfectly legalized the mass murder two 
days before. 


The facts are comment enough on this tragedy, but 
one’s mind instinctively recalls Macaulay’s description 
of Colonel Hamilton, the author of the historic Glencoe 
Massacre, February, 1862: ‘‘All the moral qualities 
which fit men to bear a part in a massacre he possessed 
in perfection.”’ 

Jalhanwala Bagh is a square plot of waste land, sur- 
rounded by a wall about seven feet high and has two 
or three small entrances. The largest of these could 
not admit three men abreast. A very large number of 
people were in Amritsar.on the day of the massacre 
celebrating a religious festival, but owing to the size 
of the meeting place and other circumstances the crowd 
which assembled on the evening of the 13th of April 
was not over six or seven thousand. The speaker of 
the day was Lala Hans Raj, President of the Lahore 
College. 

The outstanding features of the massacre are: (1) 
General Dyer knew at 12:45 p:m. that the meeting 
was to be held in Jallianwala Bagh at 4:30 that after- 
noon; (2) he took no steps in the interval to warn the 
people that the meeting would be dispersed by gun- 
fire; (3) he would not have stopped the slaughter at 
2000 but for a shortage of ammunition and the fact that 
the entrance to the meeting square was so small that he 
could not get in his armored ears with their machine 
guns; (4) he enforced the curfew law that night result- 
ing in the 1500 wounded lying unattended, where they 
fell, for 27 hours; (5) the meeting could have been dis- 
persed without a single casualty; (6) his object was 
to strike terror into the minds of the people. 

We reproduce the following extracts from General 
Dyer’s testimony before the Hunter Commission: 

@. You state in a report, General: ‘‘ At twelve-forty- 
five I was informed that, in spite of my stern proclama- 
tion, a big meeting would be held at Jallianwala Bagh 
at four-thirty that afternoon?”’ 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. I want you to explain why you did not take meas- 
ures to prevent the crowd from assembling at all in 
the Jallianwala Bagh ? 

A. I went there as soon as I could. 
organize my forces. 
situation. (Note the evasion.) 

Q. You did not open fire by the machine guns by 
accident because they could not go through the narrow 
passage ? 

A. Yes, if they could be got in the probability would 
be that I would open fire with the machine guns straight. 

@. Did the crowd at once start to disperse as soon 
as you fired? 


J ahiaaaao 
I had to consider the military 


A. Yes, immediately. 
@. Did you continue firing? 
JA ASY 68: 


Q. Why did you not stop when the crowd started to 
disperse ? 

A. I thought it was my duty to go on till it dis- 
persed. If I fired a little the effect would not be suf- 
ficient. If I fired a httle 1 would be wrong in firing 
at all. 

Q. What reason had you to suppose that if you had 
ordered the assembly to leave the Bagh, they would not 
have done so without the necessity of your firing and 
continuing firing for any length of time? 

A. Yes, I think it was quite possible that I could have 
dispersed them perhaps even without firing. 

A little later: ‘‘If I hadn’t fired on the crowd they 
might have come back and laughed at me.”’ 

Q. After firmg did you take any measure for the 
relief of the wounded? 

A. No, certainly not. It was not my duty. 
not my job. The hospitals were open. 

Indians who did not salaam (bow in reverence) to 


It was 


14 


Britishers were compelled to crawl through Dyer’s 
‘‘sacred street’’ on their stomachs, with their noses 
rubbing the ground as they crawled; 

@. You think that the people ought to salaam every 
British officer ? 

A. Most certainly, yes, if you ask my opinion. India 
is the land of the salaam. Indians know and ought to 
know it. They all know salaaming. They salaam big 
people. They salaam Rajahs. 

(. Take your orders as regards crawling. 
was your object? 

A. I felt women had been beaten. We look upon 
women as sacred. I searched in my brain for a suit- 
able punishment for these awful cases. I went down 
to the street and ordered a triangle erected. I felt 
‘the street ought to be looked on as sacred. I posted 
pickets at both ends and told them: ‘‘No Indians are to 
be allowed to pass along here. If they have to pass 
they will have to go on all fours.’’ 

(. There were a number of: floggings? 

A. Yes. I think there were twenty-five in all. 

After the wounded lay unattended in Jallianwala 
Bagh for twenty-seven hours, General Dyer, who 
‘‘would not tolerate violence or wickedness,’’ made the 
following concession: ‘‘The inhabitants may bury or 
burn their dead as soon as they please. But there must 
be no demonstration of any kind.’’ 

General Beynon, Dyer’s immediate superior, and Sir 
Michael O’Dwyer, Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, 
telegraphed the victor: ‘‘Your action correct. Lieu- 
tenant-Governor approves.’’ 

The slaughter, the floggings, the crawlings—all might 
not have occurred if the British official listened to the 
people who went to him to protest against the deporta- 
tion of their leaders. 

‘“There was no disorder till the people were fired 
on,’’ admitted Miles Irvine afterwards, the man who 
was responsible for the firing of the military on the 
crowd. 


What 


LAHORE 


Colonel Frank Johnson came from Africa to India. 
He was in charge of Lahore during the disturbances 
and of course used his African methods of terrorism. 
He flogged wholesale. He marched the students of 
the King Edward Medical College 16 miles a day in 
the broiling sun from their college to Lahore Fort for 
roll-call! Martial law notices had been torn off the 
walls of the college. The students of the Lahore Law 
College caught a police spy tearing down the notices 
on their college, but the police protected him when 
the students demanded his punishment! Colonel John- 
son told the Hunter Commission: ‘‘I had been longing 
to teach the people a lesson.’’ So he taught a lesson to 
no fewer than 1011 students. 

His evidence shows that the people he shot, flogged 
and punished were not armed, did not attack his forces 
and were not rebels. 

Q. Is there any recorded report of any member of 
the police force or of any soldier receiving any wound 
from any member of the crowd? 

tA aN Oe 

Q. Was any of your men treated in hospital? 

A. None that'I know of. 

@. Were any arms discovered by anybody anywhere 
in the large number of searches you conducted ? 

TALE NO: 

Q. If the people were bent on rebellion wouldn’t 
they have secured arms? 

A. I think you are right. 

Q. From April 15th to the end of the month there 
was no rising at all anywhere? 

A. That is a historical fact. 


Other statements he made were: ‘‘I ordered persons 
shot who obstructed any person from opening his shop. 

‘‘Not a single firearm was used by a native. 

‘Sixty per cent of the disturbances at Lahore oc- 
eurred after the Amritsar shooting.”’ 

Khan Bahadar Baksh, Senior Sub-Judge of Lahore, 
testified before the Commission that Lieutenant 
O’Dwyer, son of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Pun- 
jab, stationed himself outside a Mohammedan mosque 
and laughed and mocked at a funeral procession of 
people killed by the military as it was entering the 
place of worship! 

Colonel Johnson’s conclusions regarding his reign of 
terror are so absurd that it is difficult to refrain from 
the opinion that he considered the Hunter Commission 
as a joke and not a real inquiry into the atrocities 
practiced upon the Indian people. 

‘‘In such times you thought the right of whipping 
was essential?’’ he was asked. 

‘‘Tt was absolutely essential,’’ he replied. 
the kindliest kind of punishment.’’ 

‘*You never imagined the -punishment had serious 
effect ?’’ 

‘‘T eannot imagine it.’’ 

‘<The people liked martial law,’ 
laration! 


“‘Tt was 


’ was his parting dec- 


GUJRANWALA 


Nearly half the city of Gujranwala was destroyed by 
aerial. bombing. The principal aviator, Captain Car- 
berry, frankly admitted to the Commission that he 
wanted to do all the damage he could. He killed 11 
people and wounded 40. 

‘““When you threw bombs on them they dispersed. 
Why did you use your machine gun on them in addi- 
tion?’’ he was asked. 

He replied: ‘‘I wanted to do more damage. If I 
killed more people they would not gather again and do 
damage.”’ 

He admitted bombing the students of the Khalsa 
College as they emerged from the College after study 
hours. They were but ‘‘natives’’ to him. 


Many of the most prominent public men of Gujranwala 
were sentenced to prison terms by courts martial. The 
chief government witness against them now states that 
he was ‘‘morally and physically coerced’’ into perjuring 
himself to insure their conviction! 


KASUR 


At Kasur, ‘‘martial law was relished and blessed by 
the people,’’ according to Commissioner Marsden. The 
principal feature of martial law in Kasur was flog- 
ging. Students, deemed to be seditious and participat- 
ing in nationalist demonstrations, were picked at ran- 
dom and flogged. Two British soldiers, passing in a 
train, shot and killed two Indians. A crowd then 
gathered and killed the soldiers. Immediately a public 
gallows was erected and the whole population was 
paraded twice for the identification of the men who 
killed the soldiers. Suspects were packed into an open 
cage, with no protection from the sun, with no toilets 
or urinals, for six hours. 

Captain Doveton invented several new features in 
punishment. He whitewashed some itinerant priests 
with quick lime. He gathered all the town prostitutes 
sadist style, to witness forty floggings. He compelled 
people to rub their foreheads on the ground as a mark 
of homage to himself. Others had to compose poems 
in his praise. If any people left their homes when 
they saw the playful captain coming on a visit, he de- 
stroyed their earthenware cooking utensils and burned 
their clothing and beds. 


People in Lyallpur refusing to salaam to British 
officers were flogged. At Ahmedabad the famous 
Lewis gun was used on unarmed men. In Bombay 
cavalry charged a large crowd by mistake, according 
to Commissioner Walker. 


The details of the atrocities committed throughout 
India in this reign of terror would fill fifty pamphlets 
of this size. We have instanced Amritsar, Lahore, 
Kasur, Gujranwala, Lyallpur, Ahmedabad and Bombay 
to give the reader a general idea of what occurred. All 
these details are taken from the testimony given before 
the Hunter Commission by the officials involved and 
actual eye-witnesses, not associated in any way with 
the Nationalist movement. 


As a matter of fact, the Hunter Commission was 
boycotted by the victims of these atrocities, because 
they were not afforded a chance to attend the hearings 
and cross-examine the militarists responsible for their 
sufferings. 


The reader will judge General Dyer, Colonel John- 
son and Captain Carberry on their own testimony, 
without hearing a single witness on behalf of the people. 


A FAMINE SCENE IN INDIA 


In famine years the starving peasants of India flock 
into the towns as a last resort. There may be a crust of 
bread there. It is the last chance to defeat death. Pierre 
Loti graphically describes how three little famine vic- 
tims, suffering the last pangs, must leave the sunny 
sidewalk, where merchants are piling up sacks of grain: 


‘The tiniest of the three children seems to be almost 
dead, for he is motionless and has no longer strength to 
drive away the flies that cling to his closed eye-lids. His 
belly is so empty that it resembles the carcass of an 
animal that has been drawn for cooking, and he has 
dragged himself along the ground so long that at last 
his hip bones have rubbed through the skin. But they 
must move on elsewhere so that there may be room for 
the sacks of grain.’’ 


15 


WHY NOT IN INDIA? 


““The balance of the India Gold Standard Reserve on 
December 31, 1919, was as follows: In India, nil; in 
England, cash $30,003,185; British and Colonial Se- 
eurities, $104,255,755; British Government Securities, 
So LOoas ae totale .Blvdeg) 0.9 10) eh roms) awonden 
Financial Times,’’ January 14, 1919. 


ENGLAND LEADS AGAIN (1911) 


Population Criminals Pereentage 
England & Wales... 36,070,492 570,723 1.58 
UWaOWED = 2k ee Mie 244,267,542 BySn BeAte) 0.16 


‘‘In India, on account of the economic drain and 
British misrule, we find preventable suffering, hunger, 
insufficiently clothed bodies, stunted intellects, wasted 
lives and disappointed men.’’ Sir Willam Digby. 


# 


ENGLISH RULE IN ASIA NEARING END 


“‘England’s influence has never been stronger than when her motives have not been suspected.” 


—The late Lord Beaconsfield (Benjamin Disraeli), British Prime Minister. 


England’s world-wide propaganda is very resourceful, very powerful, very shrewd and very poisonous. 
Every theft of territory is portrayed as an act of mercy and love to the people she enslaves. When she sets 
out to cripple a competitor democracy trembles in the balance. When she mercilessly slays the unarmed it is 
a ‘‘merciful act!’’? The eries of her victims are drowned by the brass tones of her propagandists. If they do 
reach the ears of the publhe they are as soon forgotten as were the victims of ‘the Belgian rubber barbarians in 
the Congo. Or they are condoned with the plea that the acts of our common Anglo-Saxon brethren must be 
upheld—-not eriticised ! 


But Asia is waking up! Its participation in the great war, the grossly immoral tactics used by the great 
European powers in their conquest of Asian territory, and the realization that the revolutionary movements of 
India, Ireland, Egypt and other nations have shaken the supposed invulnerability of England have, all of them, 
morally loosened the hold of Europe on Asia. England still retains her territory. She has also grabbed Turkey. 
But her expulsion from Asia looms large on the horizon. Russia has relinquished her sphere of influence in 
Persia. She has assured India that the present-day Russia is not like the imperialist nation of the past and 
that she has no expansionist ideas. She has renounced all the privileges improperly acquired from China by 
the late Romanoff government. Friendly peoples surround Russia of today. Sullen peoples suspected her every 
move yesterday. 


Even Persia, quiescent in her pre-war slavery, is bravely battling England. One day an English official ex- 
plained in the House of Commons that British troops were necessary in Persia ‘‘to protect the Persian frontier 
from invasion and to secure internal tranquillity.’’ Many of our good citizens read the reassuring statement 
with satisfaction. Good old England, ‘‘the friend of small nations,’’ was on the job. Then a few days later 
came the dispatch: ‘‘The Persian army today drove the British out of Resht, an important Persian port on the 
Caspian Sea.’’ It appears that England was not at all solicitous about the Persian frontier. She was on her 
way to the Baku oil fields. 


Afghanistan fought herself free of all British connection last year. For many years she received an annual 
subsidy from the Government of India, surrendering in return her right of dealing direct with foreign nations. 
Enraged by the massacre of some Afghans at Amritsar, Afghanistan declared war against the Government (not 
the people) of India. Peace was signed on August 8,1919. It was a great newspaper victory for England. It 
was a substantial victory for Afghanistan. By the peace settlement England conceded Afghanistan the right of 
an absolutely independent nation to settle her own affairs without, in any way, consulting the Government of 
India. Incidentally England bombed the Afghan cities from the air with great success. When the Zeppelins 
bombed London in this fashion we heard a fearful outery. But then the Afghans are ‘‘heathens!’’ 


Insurgency surrounds India. It is in the air. Its influence on the Indian situation is unmistakable. Arms 
are lacking, ’tis true; but India has the will and determination to expel England. No longer are her people 
divided. No longer can England conceal the hideousness of her misrule. The provisional government of India 
is slowly encompassing the end of British rule. Every day brings fresh defeats to the British armies vainly 
trying to beat back the revolutionaries on the northwestern frontier. Day by day the unrest spreads from 
the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. The slaying of India’s millions by famine, the near-murder of her ancient 
civilization, the theft of her wealth to finance forty wars of English conquest, the deliberate extinction of Indian 
industries and the myriad other crimes of England have failed in their objective. England attacked and sought 
to kill the physical India. Whilst she partially sueceeded, the Spirit of India remained untouched. It looked 
down from its throne on the pretentious invader implacable and unperturbed. The spirit of a nation cannot be 
killed. It cannot be appeased, but by the sacred fire of liberty. It lives whilst physical oppression wanes and 
dies. And in that sense India is invincible. She has never accepted her yoke. She never will. 


And when the day comes when the people of India may apply the only force England recognizes—physical 
force, let America be swayed, not by propaganda, but by justice. The arch-assassin of small nations will have 
coined new catchwords, new slogans, new lies. As Disraeli said, England’s motives will be hidden whilst her 
influence will be strong. Let America close her ears to that influence and judge the hidden motive. 


The day of the nations oppressed by England is coming soon. There seems to be no element in England 
powerful enough to insist upon justice being done whilst there is yet time. The British Labor Party, even, will, 
not pledge itself to evacuate India and Ireland. 


India aecepts the alternative. And as Eamon De Valera, the elected President of the Irish Republie, re- 
cently declared: ‘Men who are ready to face death for what they know to be right cannot be beaten, cannot 
fail to be victorious.’’ 


The contents of this pamphlet are not copyrighted. Friends are free to reproduce any part 
or all of it. Free copies can be had by writing to the Hindustan Gadar Party, 5 Wood Street, San 
Francisco, Cal. 


